


Gravity Calls

by azhdarchidaen



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: (more tags to be added), Family, Gen, Post-Finale Shenanigans, Skype is a nightmare but brings people together, both Fluff and Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 09:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6046006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azhdarchidaen/pseuds/azhdarchidaen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After everything they've been through, the Pines family is ready for their next big, tricky adventure together -- coordinating Skype calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Contact

" _Dipper_ ," Mabel whined, tapping on the keyboard impatiently. Why was her brother taking so long? This was important! “Hurry up!”

"I'm coming!" he called back from the hallway. "I just need to grab the thing!"

Mabel was about to object at his slowness but instead squealed at the familiar sound of a call finally ringing on the laptop.

"DIPPER, SOMEONE'S READY!"

"Who is it?"

Mabel grinned, reading the custom label they'd given the account -- "Mystery Shack".

"IT’S SOOS," she yelled back, clicking the little green call icon. The picture flickered to life on the screen and she smiled to see not only the new recently-christened Mr. Mystery, but Wendy and Melody crowded around the camera as well.

"Woah, Gravity Falls to Dipper and Mabel," Wendy said. “You’re not showing up on the screen.”

"I gotta start the video," Mabel replied, clicking it and grinning as her face appeared in the corner of the screen. "Dipper's still coming," she added. "He had something he wanted to show Grunkle Ford."

"Have they called you yet?" Soos asked nervously. "The Mr Pineses haven’t called us yet. They're like, five minutes late!"

“I’m sure they’re fine, Soos,” Mabel said, wishing she could pat him reassuringly, the way she used to over the summer, through the computer screen. Fortunately it seemed like Melody was doing something similar. "It _is_ like, two in the morning over there or something."

“I mean, now that we’re all tuned in I think,  _we’re_ the ones that gotta do the calling,” Wendy said. “I’ll see if I can get them to pick up.”

She leaned in closer to the laptop, sticking her tongue out as she focused.

Dipper walked into the room then, dragging a book in with him and breaking into a huge smile when he saw the laptop screen.

“Guys!” he said. “It’s so good to see you!”

Wendy laughed, leaning back in her seat having accomplished sending her call. “It’s been like a week, Dipper.”

“A long week,” Mabel said. “We started _school_ …”

“Oh come on Mabel, it’s not that bad yet.”

Mabel rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well if I have to make up another story about ‘what I did over my summer vacation’ that won’t keep mom and dad from letting us go back for fall break I might scream.”

There was laughter on the Oregon end of the line as she cleared her throat and announced. “What I did over my summer vacation was… _THE APOCALYPSE_.”

But any further joking around was interrupted by another screen flickering to life as the final line picked up the call. Wendy and Mabel both let out little cheers as the dimly lit faces of Stan and Ford appeared in the grainiest of the three video qualities, frowning slightly at each other.

“C’mon, pick it up!” Stan was urging. “What’s taking so long?”

“Stanley, the last time I attempted a conversation via video screen the controls were _telepathic_ ….”

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel shouted waving. “Hi! Hi! We see you!”

“Kids!” Stan shouted back, face lighting up in a grin as Ford smiled more softly and leaned back, satisfied that he’d managed to establish the connection. “Heck, everybody! How you guys doin’? Things okay at the Shack, Soos?”

He saluted. “Right as rain, Mr. Pines!”

“Heh, rain. We’ve been getting a lot of that out here.”

“Is that why the video’s all bad?” Mabel asked. “You guys look all fuzzy, and I’m not just talking about Grunkle Ford’s sweater.”

"We're fine, we're fine. Signal's just really spotty out here."

"I'm working on that," Ford said quickly. "I only _just_ learned about wi-fi."

As if on cue, their screen crackled with lag and the picture froze.

"How's Iceland?" Dipper asked excitedly when their great-uncles came back into focus. Mabel grinned at how excited he looked, even just to hear about it.

"Cold!" Stan replied, grinning back.

"It's not _that_ bad," Ford said.

"Oh yeah and how many blankets were you holed up in last night? Next to the space heater?"

"That wasn't my fault!"

"You put on three pairs of socks. _Three_."

Everyone else in the call looked amused at the bickering until Stan turned back to the camera.

"Ford fell off the boat last night," he said, and his brother's face flushed in embarrassment.

"Ohmygosh Grunkle Ford are you okay?"

"Yeah, Mr. Ford the water's like, way cold up there, isn’t it?" Wendy chimed in with concern.

"Just a loss of dignity, girls. Stan made sure of that."

"Not sure what you're referencing but it had better be the fact that I dragged your soggy.... that I dragged you inside and made sure you didn't freeze out there. Heh," Stan said, clapping a hand to his twin's shoulder. He turned to everyone else "Don't worry, I'm keeping an eye on him. In case he goes and leans over a railing again because he thought he saw a fancy sea horse."

" _Faxaskrímsli,_ Stanley."

" _Extra_ -fancy sea horse."

“ _Anyways ,_ ” Ford coughed, seeming to want to move on. Dipper seemed to grab the lull in conversation as his chance.

“Great-Uncle Ford! I wanted to show you something!” He said excitedly, pulling out his book and pointing at a line in it. His face dampened slightly when he realized it was pointless to try to actually hold up the sentence in the low camera quality their grunkles were getting on the boat. “Ah, well,” he rephrased. “Tell you about something. I was doing some reading about Birkeland currents and it sounds like you guys might be just in time for a _huge--_ ”

“--Auroral event?” Ford said immediately, breaking into a grin. Mabel was happy to see that her brother was beaming back at the camera. “You’re absolutely right, Dipper, I hadn’t even considered that!”

“'Auroral' like the aurora borealis?” Melody asked, curious, and Ford nodded.

“We should get a fantastic show,” he said still smiling.

“Ahh!” Mabel said, leaning into and gripping the screen. Dipper dodged slightly to get out of her way she leapt forward in excitement. “Auroras are like space rainbows! Grunkle Ford, send us pictures! Please please _please_ \-- Grunkle Stan, make sure he takes pictures!”

“We are gonna take _so_ many pictures, kiddo,” Stan said, and she flopped back into her seat contentedly. “And we picked up a new sketchbook for this dork,” he said, elbowing Ford in the ribs. He gave a small “oof” sound, but smiled back, “so you might get something else too, you know?”

“Stanley, I--”

“--Artwork! Artwork! Artwork!” Mabel chanted, pumping a fist in the air. “Grunkle Ford, we are the family _artists_. This is an important responsibility!”

He grinned back. “I’ll send you something the first time we put together a package, Mabel.”

“Eeeeeee!” she shrieked, and Stan rolled his eyes at Ford.

“That was gonna be a surprise, Sixer! Geez…”

“It’s still a surprise,” she reassured him, “I’m surprised. And excited.”

“For the record, you all are getting one too, Soos,” Stan added, sighing. Ford was now just sheepishly rubbing his neck, apparently harboring some regret about spilling the secret.

There was a simultaneous “Thank you Mr. Pines!” and “Rad!” as Soos and Wendy spoke at once.

“You say that now, I’m gonna have to find something super weird to send you,” Stan taunted.

“The weirder the better,” Mabel challenged, leaning back in towards the camera.

“Oh yeah? What if we mail you a squid?” he grinned, leaning in as well.

“Grunkle Stan, how would you even _wrap_ it?”

“You can send potatoes through the postal system,” Dipper said offhand, and everyone turned to give him a funny look at regardless of their screen. “What?” he said. “You can!”

“...We’re gonna send you a potato,” Mabel said.

“Not if we send you a potato _first_. Ford, we got any potatoes?”

“I don’t believe we do.”

“Drat.”

“Potato race!” Mabel shouted.

“Woah woah woah,” Wendy said, waving her hands in front of her. “Who’s gonna send _us_ a potato? Dipper you can’t just throw that out there and not follow up.”

“I am going to _personally_ address you a potato,” he replied, smirking at her.

“Okay okay,” Mabel said, “so that’s a potato for Wendy, a potato for each grunkle…”

Ford threw his hands up in the air, “We don’t even have a _mailbox_!”

“I mean,” Stan said, “we’re gonna be here a little while for you to check out your nerd stuff. We can get like a P.O. box or something, right?”

“I think you mean…” Mabel said, giggling before she could even finish “...a _POTATO_ box…”

Everyone groaned.

“This is Ford’s fault,” Stan said, “Every single bit of this is Ford’s fault. How do you feel about dragging our entire family into potato-fueled chaos, Sixer?”

“ _My_ fault?”

“If you hadn’t let it slip that we were already putting together packages for everybody…”

“But Grunkle Stan, we’re excited about the packages!” Mabel said, and everyone nodded in agreement.

“Totally hyped,” Soos agreed, and Ford smiled at them all softly.

The conversation probably would have gone on a little longer if the Stan-o'-War's video hadn’t suddenly frozen completely in the middle of Stan's laughter, audio starting to crackle to the point of being barely understandable.

“.....Looks…..rough patch…” Stan’s gruff voice finally came through. “....because we’re……. rain?”

“I’ll try………... amplify transmittance……calls in future,” Grunkle Ford chimed in, and even though she doubted they were getting any video back, Mabel waved at the screen profusely.

“Call back soon!” she said. “Really really soon!”

“We’ll send you an e-mail to figure out the time!” Dipper added.

“Goodb…. kids…..!”

“And……..W...... and Soos!”

The frozen video screen cut-out with a log-off noise, and everyone in the call just sort of looked at each other.

“We can stay on a little longer, though right?” Mabel asked.

“Absolutely, dudes,” Soos said, laughing, “We set aside the whole evening.”

And so the five of them dove right back into conversation, catching up on even just the single week they’d spent apart. Mabel watched as Soos animatedly explained some ideas he was thinking about adding to the tour, as Wendy and Dipper got into a very brief but heated pun war, and as everyone laughed just over the simple joy of being together -- because really, it did feel together -- again. And she smiled. The summer might be over, but their family (their GREAT BIG LOTS-OF-PEOPLE-FAMILY) was just getting started.

Now she just needed to go grab some potatoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [9/07/12, 8:11:02 PM] Mystery Twins: In case you can't find any in Iceland!!!  
> [9/07/12, 8:11:19 PM] Mystery Twins: http://www.mailaspud.com/
> 
> \-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> so this fic is a bit of a unique little brainstorm i've had in the back of my mind since...... probably about august, long before finale details were in place. now that we have our resolution, i'm finally pushing forward with it. people following my other writing needn't worry about this getting in the way -- it's going to be an ongoing multi-chapter monster, but in more of an "as inspiration comes" way than an actual plot one.


	2. Energy

Stan dropped a second blanket over his brother's shoulders as he approached the table where they were setting up for another call with the twins, laughing when he looked up in surprise.

"That's for keeping us out in the cold today," he joked. "You ever thought about researching stuff somewhere nice and warm?"

Ford sighed. "It's possible. Wherever things lead us next."

"Make my job a lot easier," he said, rubbing and messing up Ford's hair the same way he used to when they were younger, and he wanted to be affectionate without, you know, getting all _affectionate_.

"Your _job?_ "

"Keeping you out of trouble."

"Oh so you're the responsible one?" Ford smirked.

"Well _you_ sure ain't," Stan teased. His brother failed to respond, though, when he realized their call was finally going through.

“You guys look all frozen!” Mabel said the minute her face appeared on their new laptop’s video screen. They’d gone to buy it just very shortly before the kids left for California, knowing it would be essential for calls between them -- but also that Stan didn’t have enough tech knowledge to save his life, and while his brother was catching up, he still thought that in _this_ dimension a computer that wasn’t box-shaped was pretty revolutionary.

It had also resulted in a half-hour conversation in the middle of the store between Ford and Dipper, as their nephew explained the capabilities of some 2012 technology, and Ford’s face lit up in excitement. _That_ had been a nerd-fest to watch.

On the note of computers, Ford was staring at the screen and frowning. “We shouldn’t be anymore,” he said. “After last time, I rigged up an extender that should be increasing our signal by about--”

“--Not the video,” Mabel laughed, “Your _faces._ You look _cold-_ frozen.”

“Ah, well the weather was a bit… unforgiving,” Ford conceded.

“Wouldn’t have been such a problem if you hadn’t wanted to be outside all day,” Stan laughed.

“All _day?_ ” Mabel said, almost sounding scolding. “If you grunkles aren’t more careful Dipper and I are going to drag you back here where it’s still nice and sunny and never ever let you leave.”

"That's what I was _just_ telling Ford," Stan said. 

“We’re in one of the biggest geothermal hotspots in the world!” Ford protested. “I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to observe the endemic hydrogeology in action!”

“We went to go look at some geysers,” Stan translated, rolling his eyes fondly. To be completely honest, they'd spent the day being kinda tourist-y -- only his brother could make it sound like a major research expedition.

“...Especially seeing as the Great Geysir is actually in an active period," he was continuing, "last _I_ knew, it was almost exclusively dormant. I mean, it’s the namesake of the phenomenon in the first place _\--_  not to mention the home of one of the highest recorded eruptions on the planet…”

“...and there’s a really big geyser only about an hour inland that just about made his little nerd heart explode…”

“...so the significance of the visit _alone_ would have been worth the trip. That being said, I was also able to take some incredible notes on convection and…”

“...he was like this all day and I just about pushed him into one.”

“Stanley!”

Stan laughed, softly punching Ford in the shoulder. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. It was worth it watchin’ you nerd out like that. Smelled like eggs though.”

Dipper and Mabel both were grinning at them, listening to the conversation with apparently eager ears. Stan shot them one back and spoke again. “We’re boring though, tell us what _you_ two got up to since the last call.”

“We haven’t been doing that much…” Dipper started, but Mabel cut him off.

“Dipper started writing a journal!” she said, grabbing his shoulders and shifting him towards the center of the camera’s view.

“I-it’s mostly just experimental,” he stammered awkwardly. “I thought, you know, after adding some notes to the real one this summer became a habit, it might be nice to keep track of some little things. Just some nature stuff right now, that's all. We went for a hike.”

Stan shot a glance in Ford’s direction to see that he was, sure enough, blushing slightly. The dork. You’d think by now he’d have properly realized how much the kid looked up to him.

“We’ll have to compare our research notes next time we see each other, then,” Ford said, smiling at him, and Dipper’s face lit up.

“And I’m helping him with the pictures!” Mabel chimed in. "I drew a snail!"

“At this rate our family’s gonna need its own bookshelf,” Stan smirked.

“That’d be pretty cool, actually…” Dipper said

“Yeah, well it’ll only work if our grunkles don’t _freeze_ themselves,” Mabel said, apparently still hung up on this and gesturing towards the camera. “You two need to have some warm soup or something, that’s an order.”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “This is the other way you know you’re a part of the family, she always gets like this over people. One week last winter, when I got sick, she wouldn’t shut up until I had something to eat. Which helped, but it’s kinda the principle of the thing.”

“If the family activities are writing books and taking care of each other, I think we could do a lot worse,” Stan laughed. “Don’t worry pumpkin, soup sounds like a great idea. I’ll get some started. You and I gotta watch out for the dorks, huh? Make ‘em pull their noses out of those notebooks and actually eat something.”

“That’s not quite--”

“Come on, we don’t--”

Dipper and Ford spoke in unison, then squinted at each other, before laughing.

“See?” Stan said.

“The power of Grunkle Stan _and_ Mabel,” she giggled.

“Woah there, getting added to _that_ is a pretty big deal.”

“Nothing is stronger!” she shouted. “Nothing!”  
  
Looking at his family all safe and happy and smiling at each other, and remembering the part he'd played in making that possible, Stan got a little choked up when he realized that he actually kinda agreed.

If nothing else, he was pretty damn grateful for the power of _family_.


	3. Pause

“Ohhh, _that’s_ gonna leave a mark,” Wendy said, laughing, and Dipper frowned, staring at his screen.

“Wendy,” he said, “I think you’re ahead of -- woah,  _ dude _ . Yeah, he’s out for the count,” he said, eyes widening as the swamp monster in the cheesy old B-movie they were trying to sync across computers chomped on a very fake-looking leg.

“Sucks for that guy,” Wendy said.

“Big time,” Dipper said, nodding, as the creature slunk into the shadows with its prey, “Anyways, your video’s definitely ahead of mine.”

“Aw, man!” she said, clicking what was probably the pause button. There was a slight delay as she waited for a bit, then clicked the button again. “Okay, okay…. now. What are you seeing now?”

“Um… the monster’s gone… they’re talking about--”

“--Like  _ gone _ gone? It’s still on the screen for me, now  _ you’re _ ahead!”

“And to think we were just talking about technology today being  _ better _ …” Dipper said rolling his eyes and pausing the video. He noticed Wendy doing the same.

“We can make a CGI swamp creature now, but we can’t get a movie in sync,” She said. “C’mon science, get with the times!”

“We could always try… I don’t know, filming one of our screens…?” Dipper suggested.

Wendy snorted. “That’s even more low-tech.”

“Desperate times call for desperate measure…”

“Hang on, while we’re stopped -- you don’t mind if I get up to grab some more popcorn, do you? I’m out.”

“You know that’s funny,” Dipper said, smirking, “Seeing as  _ you  _ always blamed  _ me  _ for eating all of it this summer, and I still have plenty.”

“Oh yeah? Your bowl must be bigger,” she said, waving a hand in the air dismissively. He laughed.

“Be right back,” he heard Wendy add from off-camera 

Shuffling the blanket draped across his knees slightly, Dipper took the pause to get into a slightly more comfortable position on his bed. He glanced over at Mabel’s empty one, smiling slightly at the pile of stuffed animals the occupied the space his sister usually would. 

Their parents had been a little surprised when, after coming back from Gravity Falls, the twins had asked about sharing a room again -- something they hadn’t done since they were much younger. But their summer adventures (even if room-sharing had flared up as a point of contention between them that  _ one _ time…) meant that the idea of going their slightly-more-separate ways back home didn’t hold much appeal.

But Mabel wasn’t here tonight, she was off at a friend’s house for what he was  _ pretty _ sure was a sleepover. Which was why it was nice, that on a Friday night where he otherwise might have ended up feeling a little lonely, instead he could now still try to do something with--

“--Wendy!” he said, snapping from his thoughts as she appeared back on camera. She grinned.

“Out of pop _ corn _ but I snagged some pop-tarts. Those are like… half the same, right?”

“Ew, no,” Dipper said. “Can you imagine just eating them out of a bowl?”

“Try me,” Wendy said, dropping a sugar-frosted pastry into the one that had previously held her other snacks.

“Again, with you blaming  _ my  _ appetite…”

They both laughed.

As Wendy settled back in at her desk though, Dipper was more thoughtful than anything else. Thinking about Mabel being gone had him thinking about some other things too. Namely, the fact that really good friends served an important purpose to him too.

Sure, he and his sister were closer than ever. And he had more than a hope but every intention (and a sneaking suspicion, thanks to everything they’d been through together…) of things staying that way, even as they grew up. But when it came down to it, Mabel was still, well, a sleepover person -- while his friendships were more of the “calling up a buddy you met on a paranormal investigation forum to play DD&MD every other Tuesday night” variety.

Or, you know… watching some monster movies.

“Earth to Dipper,” Wendy was saying, snapping him out of the thought. “This is mission control, come in Dipper…”

“Sorry!” he said sheepishly.

“Dipper has exited orbit,” she said, continuing to use her fake-radio voice. She dropped it for the next sentence though. “You okay, man?”

“Oh yeah I’m… I’m more than fine, I’m great,” he said. “Just… thinking.”

Wendy smirked and raised an eyebrow. “About?”

He hesitated,

She pounded a fist on her desk a few ties, making the webcam on her laptop jiggle and the whole picture shake as she chanted “Spill! Spill! Spill!”

“I’m just…” Dipper tried to figure out how he wanted to say what he was going to, and let it spill out really quickly once he decided to go for it. “I’mjustreallygladyouwantedtodothis,” he said in a rush.

“Of course, dude,” Wendy said. “Movie night was one of the highlights of the summer, I’m not gonna give up on it just because our laptops are trying.”

“Yeah but…” he wondered if there even  _ was  _ a great way to say what he was trying to “...I guess I’m just glad movie night was a highlight for you, too? Like… in the first place. That we both like doing it, and everything, if that makes any sense...”

She grinned at him. “I promise, you’re totally my favorite person to laugh at shitty special effects with.”

It was Dipper’s turn to laugh, even if it still had some of the nervous edge to it that happened when  _ anybody _ he was excited about spending time with said stuff like that. “Same,” he said as he smiled.

“The foundation of great friendships,” she said, then grinned slyly. “Along with snack-stealing.”

“I’m telling you!” he said, laughing a lot less hesitantly “Those accusations were completely unfounded! You’ve proved it!”

“Yeah, we’ll see who proved what next time you’re in Gravity Falls,” she said, “Now how much do you bet we can get this movie to match up right. I don’t have a lot of faith in this streaming site, I might go against it.”

“I’ll bet you a whole bowl of popcorn for that next time,” Dipper said.

“Oh, it’s _on_.”

“...You’re not going to intentionally sabotage my chances, are you?”

Wendy got a look of mock indignation on her face. “Dipper, I’m insulted. Where would you even get the  _ idea  _ that I’d prioritize winning a bet over--”

“--that time you tricked Thompson into betting on you in a water balloon toss,” he said, pointing at her through the screen.

“That’s fair,” Wendy conceded. “But nah, yelling about terrible ‘50s acting with you in real time is a better deal anyways. Let’s do this.”

The fact that he won that bet (a combo of satisfying yelling about syncing up properly on  _ both _ ends of the call and his getting to tease about not sharing the prize with the  _ real _ snack-hog when the time came…) was nice. But even  _ nicer _ was the feeling that stuck with him for the rest of the night after even that brief conversation.

He and Mabel were family. They were going to stay family, and they meant the world to each other. But they were different people with some sometimes different ideas about important things, and having someone else around, that was happy to share  _ your  _ idea, meant a lot too.  
  
It wasn’t that family meant any less -- just that even after summer ended, “family” was suddenly something a little bigger.


End file.
